by Rachel Lee
If this was what it meant to be at war, he wanted no part of it.
Rome, Italy
It was a hunch. No, it was both less than that and more, Steve thought. It was a prayer.
Miriam had no real idea how to find the ultrasecret United Nations division called Office 119. Every previous communication, she had explained, had come through untraceable telephone calls or e-mails. Now they were not responding to e-mail, and she had no idea who Jefe was or where he might be.
But she had met Renate and, of course, Lawton. When she described them, Miguel remembered having seen them together, here in Rome. Steve had pressed Miguel for more details. It had been in a restaurant. A small restaurant. Just after the attack on the European Parliament building. Miguel and Steve had come in together. Steve had sat with his back to them, but Miguel had been able to see the woman. In fact, he thought, she might have recognized him.
“Yes, she did,” Miriam had said. “She contacted me to let me know you were still alive. She recognized you from photos taken in Guatemala City.”
“So they know I am still alive,” Miguel said, sadness in his eyes. “I knew that eventually my past would come back.”
“No,” Miriam assured him. “It was a personal contact, not through official channels, and I didn’t update the file. What you did was wrong, Miguel, but you don’t need me to tell you that. You have already paid for it many times over. And you’ve done a lot of good since then. Now do more good. Where was this restaurant?”
And on that most slender of threads, they had come to this quiet and dark corner of Rome, never a tourist area, now one of the Islamic protection zones.
Much had changed in the weeks that Steve had been away. The poor who had walked these streets in hope that someone would take pity with the leftovers of a meal were gone, moved into housing formerly occupied by Muslims elsewhere in the city and its suburbs. The streets were cleaner, save for charred debris from a nearby warehouse that had burned. The scent of the fire still hung in the air, yet it was mixed with the tangy scents of food from across North Africa and the Middle East.
Yet much had not changed. Young men still walked along the streets in small groups, many with the shuffling stride of the unemployed, bored and dispirited. Others seemed more purposeful, slightly older, pausing to whisper a word to the loiterers, words Steve could not hear or understand but which set the younger men to small tasks. Gathering bits of rubbish into bins, or moving kiosks out of streets and against walls.
The older ones, Steve realized, were something of an unofficial police, shepherds to a flock of younger teens who might otherwise let idle hands turn to trouble. There was an order in these streets now. The Polizia were not in evidence, but neither were they needed. The young men of this neighborhood were policing their own, in their own language, under the rules of their own culture.
“That is the restaurant,” Miguel said, nodding to it without pointing. “That is where I saw the woman.”
“The odds of her being there again…” Miriam began, looking around, clearly uncomfortable in this neighborhood.
“They’re at least marginally better than the odds of spotting her on some random street,” Steve said. “It’s the best we can hope for. And if I remember, the food in the restaurant is excellent.”
Miriam nodded. “At the very least, we can eat.”
As they entered, Steve made a point of nodding briefly to the Arab man behind the small counter. There were only a handful of tables, mostly unoccupied.
“A’salaam aleikum,” Steve said.
“Aleikum salaam,” the man replied, with a courteous but cool smile.
Steve didn’t offer a handshake in greeting, having read somewhere that it wasn’t common between Muslims and non-Muslims. He did step closer to the counter, so that he could speak without being overheard. “We come in search of friends.”
“Many search for friends in these times,” the man said, his voice revealing neither hostility nor welcome. “Perhaps we should include friendship on our menu.”
“If I remember, you already do,” Steve said. “The food was excellent when I ate here before.”
“Then sit, please,” the man said. “And let us hope it is as good tonight as it was then.”
Steve, Miguel and Miriam took a table away from the windows. A menu was brought to them, and they pretended to peruse it with great interest. When the waiter came to take their orders, however, Miriam looked up at him. “I seek the one called Jefe. I am an American friend.”
The waiter looked at her, shrugged and pointed to the menu.
Steve could see that she was impatient, probably wondering if the man had understood her at all. He pointed to her menu. “Order, please, Miriam. Don’t offend our hosts by refusing their hospitality.”
She looked at him, skepticism writ large on her features, but ordered a lamb couscous with a double espresso. Once the waiter had taken their orders and left, Steve heard steps on a stairway behind him.
He turned and saw a Hispanic-looking man, accompanied by a striking blonde.
“You must be Miriam Anson,” the Hispanic man said.
Miriam’s eyebrows rose, and she turned in her chair. “Yes, I am.”
The man extended a hand. “I’m Jefe.”
“Have we met before?” Miriam asked, studying his face.
Jefe smiled and shook his head. “No, Director Anson. Even if we have, we haven’t.”
“Of course not,” she said.
The blond woman nodded coolly. “Good to see you again, Miriam. What brings you to Rome?”
31
Rome, Italy
M iriam flinched when she saw the man she had once known as Tom Lawton. Lawton Caine was not the man who had once lived in her spare bedroom. And she wasn’t sure she liked the changes.
“You look like hell,” she said.
“I feel worse than that,” he replied quietly. She reached out to hug him, but he backed away, lifting his shirt to show her his bandaged ribs. “I wish I could, but these wouldn’t let me enjoy it.”
“He got shot saving our lives,” Renate said.
Renate briefly recounted the attack in the Berlin hotel room, and Miriam could tell she was leaving out part of the story. It was probably, Miriam thought, a part that had nothing to do with the workings of two undercover agents and everything to do with the longings of two human beings. While Renate’s eyes were still glacial, there were things not even she could hide. She hovered over Lawton like a broody hen.
“I’ll have to compliment the close combat instructors at Quantico,” Miriam said with genuine gratitude to the men who taught hand-to-hand fighting at the Bureau’s training center.
“Yeah, do that,” Lawton said, trying to laugh and then wincing. “Damn that hurts.”
“So sit down already,” Renate said to him. She turned to Miriam. “He needs a mother.”
“It seems he has one,” Miriam said, smiling. She looked around the tiny space above the restaurant and the bank of laptops. “I expected…something bigger than this. For everything you do.”
Jefe nodded at the window. “We had bigger, until a couple of nights ago. Soult’s men hit our headquarters.”
“The burned-out warehouse?” Steve asked.
“Yes,” Jefe said. “Killed one of our agents. Assif and I got out—barely—with the help of our friends here. Assif grabbed what he could carry on the way out, and I set off the willy-petes. Woosh. This is what’s left.”
Miriam knew she’d recognized Jefe from somewhere, and the memory came back when he said willy-petes. John Ortega. He’d been in the Marine Corps before he’d joined the Bureau. She’d met him once or twice in passing, at training seminars. And he’d been killed in Los Angeles, on the operation that sent Lawton’s career spiraling downward. Or so the records said. Another death that wasn’t.
She turned her mind back to what he’d said. Willy-petes was military-speak for white phosphorous, a highly flammable compound used in incendiary bombs. The Office 119 he
adquarters had been pre-rigged for demolition, just in case. And “in case” had happened.
Miriam looked at the three Arab men in the room, two of them working at laptops with Assif, the other, the man who had been behind the counter when they’d come into the restaurant, standing next to Jefe. “Who are your friends?”
The man beside Jefe smiled. “Call me Ahmed.”
“Okay,” she said. It wasn’t an answer. “So what’s your horse in this race, Ahmed?”
He seemed to need a moment to figure out the metaphor. Then he said, “My people had worked with them before. Another operation. They were trustworthy, so we took it upon ourselves to look after them should the need arise. Sadly, it did.”
It still wasn’t an answer. She spoke to Jefe. “Look, I need your help, and it looks like you could use mine. I want our cards on the table. There are enough shadows out there without having them in here.”
“I could ask the same of your friends,” Ahmed said.
“I am a priest,” Steve said. He turned to Miguel. “This is my friend and my bodyguard. We are on a mission for the Church.”
Ahmed studied Miguel for a moment, seemingly looking for something he could connect to, and nodded. When he spoke, it was to Steve. “That is fair.” He pointed to the other Arab. “This is Reza. We are part of Saif Alsharaawi. In English, the Sword of the East. Our goal is to protect the interests of Allah, much as your interest is to protect the interests of Jesus Christ.”
“An al-Qaeda look-alike,” Miriam said.
Reza stiffened. “No. Do not dare to judge us. Saif Alsharaawi is committed to peace, to the true path set out for us by the Prophet, peace be upon him. We fight those who would oppress Islam, but we also fight those who use Islam as an excuse to commit atrocities. Justice cannot be purchased with the blood of the innocent.”
“I’ll vouch for them, Miriam,” Lawton said. “They helped us track down a lot of the Black Christmas people. Out here in the field, you have to take the blinders off.”
It was a subtle rebuke, but Miriam held her tongue. It had been a while since she’d been in the field, and maybe she had acquired some of the inside-the-Beltway mentality of us versus them. In Guatemala, she’d certainly had to deal with the vast gray murk of reality. The memories of the firefight outside Dos Ojos and her decision to conceal Miguel’s survival were stark reminders of the times she’d had to walk both sides of the line between good and evil. In the field, that line was not simply blurry, it was often invisible.
“Okay,” Miriam said to Ahmed. “If Lawton vouches for you, you’re good in my book. My apologies if I offended you.”
“In these times,” Ahmed said, “no apology is needed. Had we met in other circumstances, I might well doubt the motives of the United States’ intelligence czar.”
“I doubt them every day.”
Miriam let the statement hang there for a moment, then gave the barest flicker of a smile. Ahmed laughed, and the tension broke.
“We can work together,” Ahmed said.
“And we must,” Miriam said. She paused for a moment, considering how much to say. She couldn’t reveal all that Steve had told her, but she also couldn’t ask them to work in the dark. “Jules Soult is a dangerous man.”
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Jefe said.
“He has an awful power,” Miriam said. “A device he should not have. One of his agents stole it from Steve, in Guatemala. Soult used it to murder Chancellor Vögel.”
Renate looked up. “How do you know this?”
Miriam nodded to Steve. He looked down.
“Well?” Jefe asked.
“It is an ancient technology,” Steve said. “Some say it was handed down by the gods themselves, at the birth of mankind. That is legend, of course. What is not legend is what I have seen with my own eyes. I have held the device in my hands. It was hidden for centuries, buried deep in a volcano. It should have remained there. But I failed.”
“What is this…device?” Lawton asked.
Steve shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know all of it. To look at it, it’s a small ruby pyramid. It fits in the palm of a hand.”
“Pyramid power,” Renate said, shaking her head.
“Do not dismiss it,” Steve said. “When I held it up to a candle flame, it seemed as if knowledge danced inside it. Mathematical symbols. I’m no scientist, so I couldn’t make any sense of them. But if someone could…the device has terrible power. Imagine the walls of a city crumbling, soldiers on the ramparts choking on their own breath, dying under the sound of a distant trumpet.”
“Oh, shit,” Lawton said. “The Reichstag dome. The sounds reported by Vögel’s bodyguards. This pyramid did that?”
“I believe it did,” Steve said.
“We have legends of such a power,” Ahmed said, nodding. “We always believed that the legends were exactly that, tales to be told to children to entertain them as they fell asleep under the desert sky. Or tales of merciful Allah’s help when it was most needed.”
“There are such legends in many cultures,” Miriam said. “Apparently this one is more than legend.”
Jefe made as if to speak, then paused. After a moment he looked at Renate. “It makes sense. It fits what you and Margarite were thinking. Soult’s people instigate the street violence, which he then uses as an excuse for the removal program. He needed an ‘other,’ and the European Muslims fit. But the removal program is just a cover, a tool, a way to seize control of a European empire under the flag of the EU. Vögel opposes him, and Soult kills Vögel.”
“He maneuvers to get Herr Müller the chancellorship,” Renate said, nodding. “The bombing at the port of Hamburg seals the deal, and Germany goes along with the removals. But then comes the disaster in Nice, on the train. Müller rebels, and Soult is blocked again. Now we face war.”
“And Soult won’t hesitate to use the pyramid in that war,” Steve said. “In the face of such power…”
“Germany would have no hope,” Renate said. “Müller would be forced to sue for peace at once.”
“A tidy little war to secure Soult’s position,” Miriam said. “A new Napoleon.”
“Nein,” Renate said. “A new Hitler. He has taken that path from the beginning. The attempted bombing of the European Parliament building was his Reichstag fire. The Muslims are his Jews, and the bombing of the Paris Mosque ignited his Kristallnacht. Now he proposes to annex a new Rhineland, in the guise of a ‘European Security Zone.’”
“So assuming that’s all true, we know his playbook,” Miriam said. “We’re in—when was the Rhineland…?”
“Nineteen thirty-six,” Renate said. “But he’s moving a lot faster than Hitler did. We don’t have three years.”
“No,” Miriam said. “We don’t have three weeks. I need to call my boss. Congratulations, Jefe. You now have the power of the United States behind you.”
Jefe nodded, but he looked skeptical.
Miriam looked at him. “You don’t trust me?”
His eyes were unflinching. “I trust you, Director Anson. I just don’t know if the power of the United States will be enough.”
32
Querbach, Germany
H ans Neufel had watched through the night as the crowd of protesters on the Europabrücke grew. Part of him longed to be down there with them, to sit on the bridge in naive innocence, pretending that soldiers ordered into battle would not roll right over them, crushing them beneath the tracks of their armored vehicles. And perhaps, if those French troops were ordered forward, they would pause for a moment before driving through the protestors.
But only for a moment, Neufel feared.
He had tried to sleep in the wee hours of the morning, but sleep had eluded him. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the French tanks rolling forward, saw himself peer through the targeting rangefinder of his tank, heard his voice give the order, felt the iron behemoth around him buck with the concussive force of propellant burning and the armor-piercing, discarding-sa
bot round shooting forth from the gun barrel, smelled the bitter tang of cordite, all in the instant before the target in his rangefinder exploded as the penetrator burned a thumb-sized stream of molten metal plasma into and through flesh and fuel and ammunition.
It was what he had trained to do. It was what he hoped he would never have to do.
Neufel held no comfortable illusions that he would simply be destroying an enemy vehicle. Emergency bailout drills and first-aid training films had made clear what would happen to the men inside an armored vehicle when it was struck by modern ammunition. The fate of the men inside would have given Dante pause.
As the darkness weaned into dawn, Neufel considered whether he should ask Leutnant Bräuburger for permission to visit the battalion Militärpfarrer. Perhaps a priest could quiet the turmoil in his soul. But even to ask would be to admit to his platoon leader, and to his crew, that he had doubts about his ability to perform his duty. He would be showing weakness at a time when his crew needed to see strength and resolve. He would lose his position as tank commander. Any thoughts he might have had about a career as an officer would be dashed forever.
No. He would not risk his men. The other three soldiers in his tank relied on him to remain cool. He had to put his emotions aside and focus on his duty.
“Waffen-und Ausrüstungskontrolle,” he called out on the intercom. It was time to wake his men and ensure that his vehicle was fighting fit. Weapons and equipment check. “I will inspect in ten minutes.”
His order met the usual groans as brains fought their way up from sleep and into the rigors of another day. Men whose bodies needed to urinate and take a swirl of water in their mouths put off those needs as they turned to their assigned tasks. There would be time to care for themselves after the inspection.
Neufel turned on his rangefinder and selected a small truck crossing the secondary highway bridge north of Kehl. He already knew the range to the meter, and the rangefinder read accurately. He toggled the targeting button, and the turret of the tank turned a few degrees, the huge gun barrel depressing slightly, until the gun was aligned with the rangefinder.